Mother of Youngest Sandy Hook Victim Gives Wrenching Interview

Pozner also recalls the gut-wrenching trauma of learning about her son’s death as she waited with other Sandy Hook parents and children in a nearby firehouse:

For hours, she sat in the firehouse, waiting. Her stomach clenched; she vomited in the bathroom. When she came out there was pizza and donuts, but she couldn’t eat. Soon, nuns, priests, ministers and a rabbi arrived. “When I saw all those clergy people I knew in my gut of guts and my heart of hearts that they were dead,” she recalls. “I knew there was absolutely no way they would dispatch this multi-denominational fan of clergy people were it not the case that the news would be absolutely catastrophic.”

Finally, an official announcement was made: 20 child fatalities. “That is when, for me, my whole world shifted on its axis,” she says. “It was like you are sitting in a room, and everything, including you, is turned upside down and you are sitting on the ceiling instead of the floor. You have this surreal sense of void, like all the air has been sucked out of the room.” Veronique wanted to place a blanket on Noah. “They told us, ‘No, it is a crime scene.’ They would not let us go.”

And in a harrowing description of Noah’s corpse laid to rest, some idea is given of the damage the assault weapon wrought on his young body:

The family placed stuffed animals, a blanket and letters to Noah into the casket. Lastly, Veronique put a clear plastic rock with a white angel inside — an “angel stone” — in his right hand. She asked the funeral director to place an identical one in his left, which was badly mangled. Noah’s famously long eyelashes, which she spoke about in her eulogy, rested lightly on his cheeks and a cloth covered the place where his lower jaw had been.

I am crying all over again. Noah's sweet life, taken from this world so brutally. So senslessly.
This is our Nations Shame. No one Can stop the violence. However we can and will stop the guns!

As people in Los Angeles, California line up to turn in their guns for needed groceries, Congress, with ultra-liberal California Sen. Dianne Feinstein leading the charge, is readying its plans to launch its new gun regulations next month. The assault vehicle pictured below should be included on Feinstein’s list, it would seem, or at least heavily regulated.

H/t to Matt at Conservative Hideout 2.0… this powerful assault weapon on wheels helped contribute to the more than 32 thousand innocent people killed on US roads in 2011, far more than guns have killed in the same period:

83. But the Illuminati had a "madman"

"go off" in China on the same day and dontcha know but he used a knife in the attack? So that we can continue having this senseless debate.

But you just believe everything you see and read. Swallow it up whole. WMDs and the like.

This world is not what it seems. I would love for guns to go away but they WON'T. If the government ever tried to go house to house and seize guns, they'd have a fight on their hands. Not my household. I am not a scared little rabbit nor a sadist who thinks it's a "sport" to kill things.

Maybe that's why the gobermint ordered all those hollow-point bullets?

17. Well nad, its more than I expected to see in my lifetime

We have an entire military that we pay for to "liberate" other children from tyranny, yet some flannel shirt commando wanna be can defend their right to play shoot em' up an cry 'don't take away my fruit loops' if or when kids get shot by the likes of Lanza.

22. That's it? I AM a professional counselor. Its not enough, not nearly enough.

Quit taking the cheap seats to a situation that is not just horrific. For now, they've made it through that. Its the shitty next ten year they get to live through for the sake of the fucks who need their automatic weapons.

39. MichiganVote...

I have read all your posts.

I was hard for me to even post this. I felt I had to. This needs to stop!

I agree with you...never again. It must stop. Never again!

The first responders will carry this for a lifetime in their hearts and souls. I hope that they will survive this. The horror that they normally see does not come close to what they saw in Newtown. Twenty babies destroyed.

I can only imagine the pain of going home. Looking at their children...holding their children with a grief beyond all comprehension. I cry for them. I pray for them.

25. No thanks. But thanks for thinking of me. I'm good.

32. Oh, maybe you've been thru some kind of be a monk awkening thing but...

Just in case you need a reminder of your own passions.....

----------

Sun Oct 28, 2012, 09:56 PM

Star Member DRoseDARs (4,772 posts)

"Please conservatives, for the love of God, KEEP TALKING about rape and abortion and Teh Gays and...
Election Day is almost here, and early voting is on-going. Our nation NEEDS your valuable insight and wisdom on all and sundry so that the voters can make informed decisions about just how utterly fucking repugnant you all really are. Fly your freak flag proudly and without shame. Spew forth every godawful opinion and batshit insane idea and proposal you have, nothing is off-limits. And the terrorists are counting on you to continue 30+ years of treasonously undermining the economic and social health of our nation. A weak and impotent America is easier to take down than one that is strong, stable and admired. They hate a just and peaceful America *almost* as much as you do.

Hyperbole, you say? Sorry about your wittle feewings, but no it isn't. It's the God's Honest Truth and you fucking know it. Assholes.

Go fuck yourselves."

(DU, in case you're wondering, it was seeing Newt defending Mourdock that triggered this. Because lol, seriously, fuck those guys. Fuck all of them.)"
--------------

55. That's right. Shame on them! Fuck. n/t

71. Some choose other threads for debate.

Some don't want to debate on a thread where it's obvious it's just going to be a pile on. In my case, I have never and will never hurt a child or a woman. I like to target shoot as a sport, and I recently got into hunting. It sure beats nearly taking down the whitetails with the car every other week and venison is pretty damn tasty in the right dishes.

For me, this topic is emotionally painful. One of the most caring and helpful professors I ever had in college was murdered by a gunman at Virginia Tech. If you really need to heap scorn on me and grind salt into my wounds to make yourself feel better, then have at it...

72. I wasn't referring to you. And I don't mind honest debate about political issues.

I've been around this issue for some time due to my own personal family's experience and the loss of a neice. So I can understand the pain and sorrow you feel about theloss of a beloved professor.

Mostly, I feel the quality of the gun issue is largely debased by the other pro gunners here and devolves into a "you can't talk about gun control because you don't know this or that technical speck of data about a piece of gun hardware." And, frankly, some of the other usual rhetoric is so timeworn and has been so thoroughly debunked it is just not worth it to keep reminding about the real facts, as opposed to the NRA propaganda.

IMO, we have gone over the edge in this debate. There seems to be a lack of remorse by the professional gunners, as I call them (and I am not calling you that) over their basic brief, which never gives an inch, even in the face of stark, raving gun madness. I truly think they don't see it. And that is the most frightening thing of all and makes me very angry and disillusioned about this country.

75. Sorry, I've been a little jaded as of late.

Some of the very vocal anti-gun folks on DU declared that I was a gun nut because I merely owned guns. After that I just stayed out of most discussions other than the newspaper map ones, as I'm an extremely strong proponent in a right to privacy. I could support registration if it was used not as a shaming tool, but as a way to ensure sales/transfers met all required laws on eligibility and owners checked out for background. Vital to this would be the strict limitation that this info could only be released for law enforcement use.

I do understand that we have another problem here as well. The shooters are all white, come from privileged families, and most felt some sense of social rejection. Obviously the Reagan Revolution ills are coming home to roost, and the once privileged are lashing out at society. That said, the guns, especially ones with high capacity magazines, made it a hell of a lot easier to do that lashing out.

At the same time there is a strong tradition of private gun ownership in this country. I grew up in the gun culture. I have only purchased one gun in my life, with all others passed down to me from family. That I practiced on them as a child under the guidance of a parent and grandparent who are now deceased does make it unlikely I'd ever willingly relinquish ownership of them. There are bonds and sentimental memories locked up in these tools. I learned these sports as a child, and continued them into adulthood, not because of fear, but because I enjoy them.

And in this lies the horrible truth of the problem. Guns are used to commit acts of violence. At one time it was more targeted and easy to ignore. Drug dealers hitting each other didn't effect the suburbs. But now as the violence spreads into the classic zone of "white flight", it has become too obvious to ignore that we have too many extremely lethal weapons out there. The major problem is that most gun owners don't see themselves as creating a problem, and in truth, the vast majority are not a problem. Most are parents, and they are heartbroken at the loss of so many beautiful and innocent children, not to mention the teachers who died serving a noble profession, in some cases themselves so young and full of life.

What I think happened is that those that chose to continue debating are locked into a "siege" mentality that makes them appear to lack any remorse. While gun owners are seen as a group, the individual owner may themselves be a responsible person and may react badly to being blamed for something for which they earnestly feel no responsibility. As efforts to drive the feeling of responsibility onto them are made, they instead "entrench" even deeper in their views. People who have never owned guns may not be sensitive to the feelings of owners that they are unfairly taking the blame. And some on DU have been quite brutal in that effort. As for the NRA, I have never been a member. I am a lifelong Democrat, and was a John Kerry delegate at the VA state Convention that nominated delegates to the national Convention that year. The NRA is a Republican organization through and through, and would support a Republican over a Democrat even if the Democrat was the more favorable for their views. As such I have zero respect for the organization. However, it's non-political wings are deeply entrenched throughout the gun owning fabric of the country, to the extent that an NRA certification is practically required for any Handgun safety class in Connecticut. And even I do follow their standard rules for safety. Of course, those rules are rather logical and non-political.

One thing I do see is the ever growing siege mentality in all corners of our society. Some are afraid to send their children to schools because of the fear of violence. Some are afraid of an intruder in their homes. Some are afraid that they will be killed in public places, alternately choosing to support banning all guns or arming themselves. The fears both justify the feelings in those who oppose guns and those who support guns. And it's the constant fear, the siege mentality, that is eating away at our society. I strongly believe schools should be gun free, and frankly, most public places too. Statistically (and it may seem cold) most of us are in greater danger just driving around on the roads, but we don't have as much fear because we believe we have control. What I really wish for is that we as a society could hype fear a lot less. We'd all be a lot healthier for it. But I acknowledge we have some serious social and economic problems standing in the way also.

If this seemed a bit disjointed, or unorganized, please understand that is how my emotions are right now. They are a train wreck.

79. You make sense, tho. Maybe you will agree with me that something has come unglued

regarding guns in our society and, far from being an outlier (as the Finnish shooter was a few years ago) these massacres are just more and more commonplace. This is truly disturbing. It does not bode well. It really doesn't. And it strikes at the very heart of civilized society. Once it goes over that boundary, it is very hard to pull it back, esp. given the wacko NRA theories combined with increased lethality of guns and their proliferation throughout society.

I grew up in Texas in the 50s. Nobody my family knew would strut around with a gun in his holster for all to see. And yet there were guns for hunting that were well kept and secured. And I suppose target practice guns altho nobody in my family did that. There was once exception: our neighbor shot and killer her husband with a handgun she kept in the glove compartment of the car (for protection). She was enraged by his infidelity, a brief argument ensued, she pulled out the gun and shot him pointblank. She was convicted and sent to prison but had enough money to "encourage" then Governor Allan Shivers to give her a pardon on the excuse that she was suffering from a heart condition. But the incident and the ensuing trial made headlines in the Dallas Morning News. Other than that incident there was no other gun event in my young life growing up in DAllas and visiting my relatives all over the state (we were native born Texans, not transplants from the East and I am 3rd generation).

I hope you will heal from the shocking experience you had. I truly have no anger with you even tho we differ on the issue, and I wish you peace.

88. Thanks

80. Here is a way to look a t it

And told bake the exact same thing.

Those heaping scorn on all gun owners who want to get rid of all guns are just as fringe (and loud on these boards) as the NRA.

We need balance.

The target shooting is fine. Hunting is fine. What is apparently coming out of DC will have the true gun nuts in a tizzy, if reports are right. Yup a few here on these boards are going to scream bloody murder and another group is going to scream not enough.

1- AWB ban.

2- Limit on magazine size

3- The biggie, closing the gun show loop.

I guarantee howling...on both sides. Some, they are gonna take my guns next, the other...not going far enough. This is what is possible.

42. I suggested that a little earlier in this thread. We should just paste a link to this

post and ask the gun humpers if they have anything at all to say and see what we get. My guess is they'll be all "I am sorry for her loss" but they should be forced to see this story again and again and again. It should haunt their dreams and wake them in the night screaming...

54. The gruesome death of 20 children does not bring a tear to your eye.

I have been with Du for just over two months. Newbie here.

And no you are right, it is not a bad thing to show emotion and empathy.

Do not judge me unless you have walked in my shoes. I nearly lost a family member that is so dear and sweet to me. That member was unresponsive when he was airlifted to the hospital. He nearly died! It was thirty days before he came home to us. So yeah I am a little emotional right now.This happened a week after I joined DU.

68. I know. I lost a neice to gun violence. OUr family was never the same, of course.

My brother's life was ruined. His other daughter ended up going into the ministry because of her guilt at not being present as she was supposed to be at the time of the shooting by their step grandfather. I'm not sure she ever got over it. Our mother was wrecked. I get terribly emotional all these years later.

I lost another dear family member in 2010 and found it impossible to stop crying for weeks and weeks.

Joe Biden said a wonderful thing about losing your dearest ones (as he so well knows) when he spoke to family members of fallen troops last Memorial Day. He said that he knew they couldn't imagine it, but one day there would be a time when the memory of the loved one will bring a smile to their lips before it brings a tear to their eyes. What a remarkably insightful, and so comforting, statement!

Please take care. Many of us are with you in this journey of sorrow...

63. Agreed. nt

65. Laura

I think that thought whenever I read about someone crying over a speech, because it feels so over the top....but you know what? I don't say anything because, well, maybe they're more sentimental than am I. But to read about a mother's reaction to the horrific and senseless slaughter of her 6 year old son along his classmates and teachers? That simply does not warrant a snarky response; better you should not post anything.

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Sat Dec 29, 2012, 04:47 PM, and the Jury voted 3-3 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to HIDE IT and said: Gratuitous cruelty.
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: Insensitive, yes, but not over-the-top.
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: Freedom to be an asshole is enshrined in the constitution.

Also, I suggest a self-delete unless the poster really wants everyone to think she's an asshole.
Juror #4 voted to HIDE IT and said: no personal attacks, read the TOS.
Juror #5 voted to HIDE IT and said: Insensitive and not contributing to the discussion.
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given

Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.

74. Anyone with anxiety should probably abstain. The visuals

to go along with the tragedy put me back in that awful place I was in for several days after the tragedy. You can't help but visualize the actions little Noah might have taken right before the end. All you can do is hope that he went quickly, instantaneously even.

What pisses me off is that the people who should be required to read articles like this will probably never see it. They remain insulated from the consequences of their philosophy.

91. I know..

I saw..

No shame in feeling some degree of pain that those poor parents and loved ones are going through. I make myself read about their stories to support them on some level of higher consciousness. My heart goes out to them, so much, as all our hearts do.